Pebbles in the pond

The Ville on the Hill

You’ll recall we are telling the story of The Great Being, the Singular Self that is living through each of us avatars. We are watching how the story unfolds on the planet Earth through the experiences of two Agents of Cosmic Intelligence, Melchizedek and Layla, here on a mission that started in 200,000 BC. They are now in a new life around 40,000 BC. In the previous episode, they had started their trek to escape “the enemy” by climbing the great mountain to attain the higher ground. Previous Installments.

Only a few tribe members had been lost on the difficult climb, these being among the weakest and least healthy of the slaves, except for one warrior who fell to his death while showing off. Fortunately they were not pursued by the enemy tribe, whose fire smoke could now be seen from their vantage point, thus allowing some understanding of their movements and possible intent. It looked to Melchizedek as if the enemy army was focused on taking and holding the valleys, perhaps leaving the mountains for a time when reinforcements might arrive. His idea to escape into the hills was therefore a lucky guess or more likely an inspiration, a form of cosmic fire support he knew he had received many times in the past.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” Layla (in Ska’s body) asked, lying beside him in the tall grass looking down at the vast panorama. Melchizedek (in Blu’s body) saw what she was looking at, what appeared to be a herd of about a dozen bison in a meadow a thousand feet below. He had been more concerned with following enemy movements and had not noticed the animals.

“Glorious animals,” he readily agreed, and stood in a crouch to minimize the chances of being seen, although the enemy was unlikely to see anything at this distance. The other tribe, he corrected himself. He knew that once he started to adopt the habit of thinking of them as the enemy, he would be playing into the hands of the powerful overly-helpful brain in these Cro-Magnon bodies, and his awareness of his true Melchizedek self would begin to recede. To an Agent, even rebels were not the enemy, just very Lost Lambs that needed to be brought back into the fold.

They had established camp on a forested plateau a little over a mile above sea level, next to a lake that reflected the greenery. It appeared green but was apparently fed by underground springs and so was not stagnant. It did not take long to set up new tent-burrows using fallen branches and other objets trouvés. Small game was abundant and easy to catch, and Ska had courted the King’s displeasure by sharing some meat with the slaves. However, he agreed that once it became too gamey for the warriors to want it, there was no harm in giving it to the slaves, as leaving it to moulder would be offensive and possibly draw the horrific predators that legends said lived on the great mountain. So far the most dangerous animals they had encountered were aggressive wild boar, which were kept away by the fires. Unfortunately, the table scraps of rabbit and squirrel were still not enough protein to bring the slaves up to a level of health and combat-readiness conducive to their becoming assimilated equal subjects of the King.

One of the first things the King did was to look for and find various kinds of mushrooms, bark, and roots, hoping that there would be psychedelics up at this altitude as there were in their old home. After getting sick from one of these, he began using slaves as tasters. One such slave was terrified of the King and of the painful death he had seen another taster undergo, but he had a laughing fit after eating a bit of one particular mushroom, so the King snatched the remainder away from him and studied it carefully so as to be able to distinguish it from other mushrooms.

Blu and Ska had done their own searching and found the soft-colored stones they had been seeking as part of their secret plan, the part they had not shared with the King. In the busy confusion of setting up their new home, the King had not appeared to notice them missing from time to time. Now their preparations were almost complete and the showdown would be coming soon, one way or the other.